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Hey guys, long time no see! After a somewhat lengthy hiatus, i'm back with more analysis to help you understand and conquer the tricky concept that is the meta of Hearthstone.

Common Decks & Cards

So first things first, let's talk about Rogue. Rogue is almost certainly the top class in the meta right now due to the power of Oil Rogue. This is a deck that has very few counters in the game, due to the massive efficiency of the Rogue's cards, and the overwhelming Tempo they can gain through cards like Preparation and Backstab. Matchups that were previously considered unfavourable for the deck such as Face Hunter and Control Warrior are now perfectly manageable for the Rogue, as they have learned to play more aggressively against the Hunters, and have teched in stickier cards like Piloted Shredder and Dr. Boom to create more pressure against the Warrior. These developments have left Rogue as the number 1 deck in the format, and the one to aim at.

The other strong development recently has been Midrange Paladin. This deck has emerged as another huge contender on ladder due to its flexibility and consistency. Paladin is a deck that can afford to carry tech cards like Harrison Jones, Kezan Mystic, and Mind Control Tech to react to the meta on an almost daily basis due to the consistency of the rest of the deck. The only drawback to Paladin, is that even with the optimal build against Rogue, including extra cards like Harrison Jones and Loatheb to increase your odds, you are still highly unfavoured in that matchup.

The third powerful contender in this final week of the season is Control Warrior. Control Warrior, despite the changes mentioned in the Rogue section, is still favoured in the Rogue matchup, and being favoured against the best deck in the format is enough to cement you a place in the meta. As has been mentioned in previous articles, Control Warrior tends to make a comeback towards the end of each season due to its consistency, when it comes to crunch time, and the ranks really start to matter, people tend to fall back on this archetype as a reliable climbing tool.

Amongst these three powerful decks, there is also a smattering of both Face and Midrange Hunter, alongside Mech Mage, and various iterations of Handlock, both with and without additional Demon cards. The problem with these decks, and what is keeping them out of top contention however, is that they all suffer heavily against one of the above mentioned strong decks.

In terms of tech cards, the most common inclusions currently are Loatheb and Harrison Jones. Harrison Jones hits against all three of the mentioned powerful classes, and should be considered a must-include in your deck. Loatheb is also common, just because of its incredible power against Rogue. A well timed Loatheb can easily be the difference between victory and defeat against Rogue, since it often locks them out of doing anything on their turn, and lets you push a lot of damage with an established board. Aside from this Big Game Hunter is as ever-present as always, but other cards like Mind Control Tech are far less common due to the decreased amount of board flood decks in the meta.

Class Power Rankings

We're going to try something a little different with the class rankings this week. Instead of writing descriptions of the classes, which are already covered reasonably well in the main body, I will simply list the common archetypes, and their strengths and weakness against other common decks.

Diablo’s 20th Anniversary will take place in the beginning of 2017 and it will be celebrated in all other Blizzard games. Let’s take a look at the special Diablo-themed Tavern Brawl planned for Hearthstone.
During the release of the latest Hearthstone patch, a new Diabloesque card back was discovered. According to an article by Hearthpwn, where we found all this information, this card back is tied to an upcoming Tavern Brawl called “[The] Dark Wanderer”.

The chalk board, heroes, hero powers and some cards of minions, spells and secrets of this upcoming Brawl have been datamined and you can find them in the same Hearthpwn article. The two players will take on the roles of the Dark Wanderer and the Cow King, two figures we all recognise from Diablo II. Presumably, the card back will be rewarded after your first victory in the Brawl.
We are expecting this new Tavern Brawl during the first weeks of January 2017 – just like the other Diablo celebrations in Blizzard games (most notably in World of Warcraft).